As is known by one skilled in the art of protecting buildings and the like from damage caused by missile-like objects that are occasioned by the heavy winds of hurricanes, tornadoes, or explosive over-pressures, there are commercially available variations of hurricane protective devices, often called shutters, that fasten immediately over the frangible area to be protected. These devices are typically expensive to purchase cumbersome, made from stiff, heavy material such as steel and aircraft quality aluminum alloy or occasionally reinforced plastic. Many need to be manually connected and then removed and stored at each threat of inclement weather. Many require unsightly and difficult-to-mount reinforcing bars at multiple locations. Further, these known shutters are usually opaque, preventing light from entering a shuttered area and preventing an inhabitant from seeing out. Likewise, it is desirable that police be able to see into buildings to check for inhabitants and to prevent looting which can be a problem in such circumstances.
Missiles, even small not potentially damaging missiles, striking these heretofore known shutters create a loud, often frightening bang that is disturbing to inhabitants being protected. Standardized testing requiring these protective devices to meet certain standards of strength and integrity has been introduced for various utilizations and locales. In order to qualify for use where testing requirements apply, the strength and integrity characteristics of these protective devices must be predictable and must be sufficient to meet mandated standards.
Additionally, it is beneficial to qualify for these standards even in situations in which standards do not apply. As a result of these standards, many undesirable aspects of the previously known shutters have been acerbated. They have become more cumbersome, more bulky, heavier, more expensive, more difficult to store, and remain generally opaque and noisy when impacted.
To incorporate sufficient strength to meet said requirements, weight and bulk become a problem over six feet in span. The useable span (usually height) of the heretofore known shutters that meet said standards may be limited to eight feet or less. This makes protecting large windows, for example, or groupings of windows, with the heretofore known devices cumbersome, expensive and impractical. Devices that are intended to be deployed in a roll down manner either manually, automatically, or simply by motor drive, have been difficult to strengthen sufficiently to pass the test requirements and require unsightly reinforcing bars every few feet.
Prior to the introduction of said standards, an ordinary consumer had very little useful knowledge of the strength and integrity of said shutters. It is believed shutters of the pre-standard era were very weak such that all would fail the present standardized testing. As the hurricane conditions can be very violent and destructive, the standards are not intended to require strength and integrity sufficient to protect in all circumstances. The standards simply provide a benchmark as to strength and integrity. The strength and integrity of the shutters can now be measured by standardized tests.
There are many patents that teach the utilization of knitted or woven fabric such as netting, tarpaulins, drop cloths, blankets, sheets wrapping and the like for anchoring down recreational vehicles, nurseries, loose soil and the like. But none of these are intended for, nor are capable of withstanding the forces of the missile-like objects that are carried by the wind in hurricanes or explosive over-pressures.
Some protection devices have internal stiffness and rigidity that resists deflection, or bending. In rigid protection devices, it is stiffness that stops the missile short of the frangible surface being protected.
Other protection devices use fabric or netting material to cover a unit to be protected. Typically, the device completely covers the unit, and edges of the fabric are fastened to the ground. Examples of fabric employing devices are shown in the following patents: U.S. Pat. No. 3,862,876 issued to Graves, U.S. Pat. No. 4,283,888 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,397,122 issued to Cros, U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,395 issued to McQuirk, U.S. Pat. No. 3,949,527 issued to Double et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,805,816 issued to Nolte, U.S. Pat. No. 5,522,184 issued to Oviedo-Reyes, U.S. Pat. No. 4,590,714 issued to Walker and U.S. Pat. No. 5,522,184 issued to Pineda. U.S. Pat. No. 5,522,184, for example, provides a netting that fits flush over the roof of a building and uses a complicated anchoring system to tie down the netting.
Typical of known flexible, fabric-employing protection devices is the characteristic of substantial rain and wind-permeability. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,794, issued to Sporta, discloses a wind-permeable perforate sheet that extends downwardly and outwardly from the top of the object to be protected at an acute angle so as to surround a substantial portion of each of the sides with an inclined wind-permeable planar surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,325,085 to Gower illustrates a barrier similar to the instant invention to be deployed inside a building or over individual windows. U.S. Pat. No. 6,176,050 to Gower teaches the use of the barrier material of this invention deployed over multi-story buildings. Both patents are incorporated herein by reference.
Thus, what is lacking in the art is an improved flexible protective barrier constructed from a mesh material with substantial rain and impact resistance that can be easily stored and deployed in combination with a flexible, inflatable, reinforcing cushion for protecting the frangible portion of a structure not only from objects carried by the wind but also from the force of the wind itself.